Former Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Friday that former President Donald Trump's upcoming criminal trial in New York City could be "good or bad" for his reelection campaign.
Trump's criminal trial over an alleged hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels is set to begin after an appeals court rejected Trump's attempts to delay proceedings. The former president is accused of falsifying business records to obscure payments to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who paid Daniels roughly $130,000 to not go public with her claims of an extramarital affair with Trump.
Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels and has pleaded not guilty to the 34 felony counts of falsifying his company's records, arguing that his payments to Cohen were above-board legal expenses.
When asked on "Wake Up America" whether cameras being allowed in the courtroom will help or hurt Trump's reelection campaign, Napolitano described the former president as "a master at taking a misfortune and turning it into his political benefit."
Napolitano said that if Trump "is berated by the judge, for example, seeing that on camera, Donald Trump will be able to take that clip and use it … in a commercial for his" presidential campaign.
He added, "But overall, I can't say if it will be good or bad for him. In one respect, he's got to behave himself … in a procedure that is essentially boring."
Napolitano said that trials are usually not as dramatic as depicted on TV and in movies, noting that "90% of it is boring, boring, boring" and Trump "has to sit there. He has to be there 100% of the time, four days a week, they're going to take Wednesdays off, that day may float, but they're going to sit for four days a week."
He added that although the trial will likely start on Monday, "it's going to take a long time to pick 16 people that don't have … an opinion on him and that can be very fair to him in New York City."
Napolitano noted, "If found guilty, Trump would be a convicted felon," but the former judge said, "I doubt that he would get" jail time since Trump "has no priors, and this is not the type of crime that is indicative of jail."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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